REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE OF THE PROVINCE.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 468, 20 February 1869, Page 2

REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE OF THE PROVINCE.

(From the Colonist.) By a proceß of figurative manipulation, conducted with seeming simplicity which is almost charming for its naivete, our contemporary (the Examiner) on Saturday morning sought to prove, in a sort of semiofficial manner, that, despite the figures, the financial management of the present Superintendent shows aa good results at the bank as were shown when he rose to the chair of state. "With an earnestness apparently as sincere as if founded on the fullest confidence in the accuracy of the statement, and on the unimpeachable soundness of the inference meant to be drawn from it, it is declared that the £BOOO and odd overdrawn now, was about the sum due to the bank when Mr Curtis took office; the credulous elector being thus invited to believe that it was " six " then and is " half-a-dozen " now. At the end of the Mareh quarter of 1867, a few days before Mr Curtis was formally installed into the office of Superintendent, the official returns show ed a balance due by the Province to the bank of £3653, and not £BOOO as is alleged. On the previous quarter the balance was £16,157 at the credit of the Province; but in the early part of 1867, Mr Saunders, as we have said, deposited in a separate account the sum of £12,000, to be applied to the reduction of the Provincial debt. Taking, therefore, this deposit, (which was good and lawful moneys of the Province, —as the Government took care afterwards to ascertain,) and placing it against the £3653, due by the Province on 31st March, there is an actual balance of £8350 to credit at that particular date, which makes something like a difference of £16,000 to £17,000 between the condition of the finances as on 31st March 1867, and their condition now, even when the overdraft of £22,489 has been reduced by recent payments

to, it is said, £BOOO. It is convenient for our contemporary to leave out of sight this £12,000, which, with much business-like gravity, Mr Curtis proposed to divert from its original channel of debt-paying, towards getting a dry dock for this port. The money was duly diverted and absorbed; but not in a dock, for, as one of our own clothier poets has said, or should have said, Nelson, still PieAess, is seen with neither dock nor slip. Eegarding theßrunner coal mine, it is true that, as has been stated, the working of the mine may be improved; but nothing is shown as to what these permanent improvements, if such they are, cost, and what is the sum paid for winning the coal. As a mere matter of accounting, these items ought to be shown separately, if the former really deserve the name of extraordinary improvements. What has become of all those rosy visions so delightfully displayed some two years ago, when the business was electioneering ? Whence has vanished that promised progress which was to drive " stagnation " before the wind of business and the capacity of commercial accomplishments ? Blunders in accounting, which none of the well-paid officials could discover, have caused the stoppage of all public works because there was not the estimated wherewithal to pay for them. Twelve thousand pounds, with accrued interest, has disappeared. This reserve fund, which lay snugly in the bank when Mr Curtis took charge of the Treasury, exists no more, and we owe at least £BOOO to the bank besides. The greatly talked of dock is nowhere, except on a plan, and with a specification, the cost of which destroyed the hope of its possible achievement. The railway has not even a visionary existence, except that its spectre still spasmod- . ieally haunts the columns of a local , journal, to the amusement of the public, from whose eyes the film has , now departed. And now, what have we in room of all those long-excited expectations ? Nothing, except disappointment and costly departments!